Abusing Elie Wiesel at Durban II
A member of Ahmadinejad's entourage takes sadistic pleasure in shouting "Zionazi!" at the Holocaust survivor. So much for dialogue with Iran. (At PJTV: "Roger L. Simon & Jon Voight Walk Out on Ahmadinejad.")
One of the fruits of the Durban II circus is a brief, appalling video of someone described as “a member of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s entourage” verbally abusing author, Nobel Prize winner, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. In the incident, which took place Tuesday, the Iranian’s form of verbal abuse is simple and consists of bellowing the word “Zionazi” over and over again at the stunned and silent 80-year-old, who survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald as a teenager while his mother and sister died in the former camp and his father in the latter one.
A few observations about this horrific incident:
1. The bellowing Iranian clearly takes sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain on Wiesel and can’t get enough of it. And the Iranian is an acolyte of a totalitarian ideology, Islamism, which — like Nazism and communism before it — largely consists of organized sadism with ideological underpinnings. The sadism intrinsic to the totalitarian mindset is vividly on display in the video.
2. At the same time, the Iranian deeply believes in what he is saying; he believes that Wiesel, as a “Zionist,” is a member of a Satanic people and fully deserves the pain and humiliation of being equated with his peoples’ archenemy. The Iranian has no doubt or ambivalence, no postmodern ennui or relativism, to enervate him in his frenzied fervor.
3. The type of abuse the Iranian levels at Wiesel is, so far as I know, a kind directed only at Jews. Cambodians are not told that they are Khmer Rouge members; Darfur victims aren’t called Janjaweed tribesmen. Only Jews are now regularly and ritually identified with their slaughterers. In the case of someone like Wiesel, who is himself a survivor who lost his immediate family, the level of psychological abuse is draconian.
4. Although calling Wiesel a Nazi, the Iranian in the video can be safely assumed to be a Holocaust denier — especially as a follower of Ahmadinejad, for whom Holocaust denial is an obsessive theme and under whose auspices a conference dedicated to it was held in Tehran in December 2006. The combination of Holocaust denial with using the word Nazi — especially against Israel and Jews — as the blackest epithet is by now so widespread in the Arab and Muslim world that it no longer is recognized as illogical. Logic dissolves before the imperative of inflicting as much pain on the demonic enemy — Israel and Jews — as possible, whether by saying that the genocide of the Jews did not occur or that the Jews themselves are the genocidists.
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P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Tel Aviv. He blogs at http://pdavidhornik.typepad.com/
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26 Comments
1. Anonymous:That’s just sick & wrong. Of course, knowing how the UN is, it would’ve been “hate speech” to tell the Iranian to go pound sand. Ahmadinejad needs his butt kicked.
Apr 23, 2009 - 2:58 pm 2. mishu:What an Islamonazi.
Apr 23, 2009 - 3:01 pm 3. kenny komodo:I second the motion that Ahmadinejad needs to have his butt whipped. But it looks less and less like it will be the United States that is going to do it. So who exactly does that leave. Most folks will immediately think that the Israeli’s are going to go for it but I have a different theory. Iran is a danger not only to Israel but to the rest of the Muslim world as well. With the U.S. sitting on its hands and displaying an obvious reluctance to engage Iran militarily it will be left to a coalition of Arab states that will put an end to the madman of Iran. Egypt, perhaps Jordan and Lebanon with the backing of Saudi Arabia will have to do something before Iran has a working nuclear weapon. Perhaps even a revitalized Iraq will join in since they already had one war with Iran and I’m betting that there are still plenty of Iraqi’s who have a “thing” for hitting back at Iran.
Apr 23, 2009 - 5:11 pm 4. Noesis Noeseos:May the fleas of a thousand buggered camels excrete their filth on that Islamofascist’s rasping vocal chords and lay their nits in his hate-bulging eyes… just before they all return home to burrow into Ahmadinejad’s fetid nether orifice at the same instant he shudders with the sound of the thunder of the IAF rendering justice upon his apocalyptic ambitions.
Better I should write such a curse so that long-suffering Elie Wiesel doesn’t even have to think it.
Apr 23, 2009 - 7:11 pm 5. Dave Surls:Mad mullahs delenda est
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:14 pm 6. Jordan:Lol, please… I dont think the Iranian nutcase had a clue who Wiesel even was. Way to over analyse the situation to serve your own hawkish interests.
Apr 23, 2009 - 8:40 pm 7. dan:Can’t we just start kidnapping these people and putting them on like a drag-queen gong show or something?
No need for assassination – character assassination will do just fine.
Apr 23, 2009 - 9:14 pm 8. Oscar the Grump:Seeing this gentle eloquent man being abused in such a way completely hits me in a visceral way. Can it be now that god will judge man and find him wanting. There is no limit to the Islamist’s cruelty and vulgar coarseness. They point a finger, what they should see is in the mirror. Can a whole people be sociopaths?
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:29 pm 9. Oscar the Grump:Jordan
Apr 23, 2009 - 10:33 pm 10. Jordan:You are what is wrong with western society, blind, appeasing, and cowardly. Your Lol stands for LAST ONE LEARNING. Figure this one out SIUYA.
Western society is no more because of Oscar the grumps of the world. Globalization, mass migrations, land invasions, terrorism we have done it all! It’s about time we reap what we sow.
How about the Iran-Iraq war where a million of these middle-easterner anti-semite ahmadinejads were killed because of our chemical bombs? Where was our outrage back then when we supported Saddam and let him use the chemical bombs. Where was our outrage when we sanctioned Iraq and put embargoes on them and killed a few hundred thousands of their mini-ahmadinejads? huh?
Apr 23, 2009 - 11:44 pm 11. Dave Surls:“How about the Iran-Iraq war where a million of these middle-easterner anti-semite ahmadinejads were killed because of our chemical bombs?”
No one killed in the Iran-Iraq war was killed because of “our” chemical bombs.
“Where was our outrage back then when we supported Saddam and let him use the chemical bombs.”
It’s not our responsibility to prevent other nations from using chemical weapons. And, we provided (extremely limited) support to the Baathists in Iraq in order to block our avowed enemies in Iran.
“Where was our outrage when we sanctioned Iraq and put embargoes on them and killed a few hundred thousands of their mini-ahmadinejads?”
We have no obligation to trade with Iraq or anyone else, no matter what their internal situation is. We’re not obligated to take care of anyone but ourselves, and we’re certainly not obligatred to assist nations that help terrorists kill our citizens and that constantly try to shoot down our aircraft. That being said, the claim that hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq is total nonsense. It’s totally made up. It never happened.
And, Oscar is correct. Idiots like yourself ARE what’s wrong with western civilization.
Mad mullahs delenda est
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:34 am 12. Dave Surls:“3. The type of abuse the Iranian levels at Wiesel is, so far as I know, a kind directed only at Jews.”
I don’t know about that one. A lot of Americans were killed by the Nazis, and we’re called Nazis on a regular basis. A lot of people say we’re even worse than the Nazis. That’s especially ironic, since without America, there is exactly zero chance that the Allies could have defeated the Nazis.
Apr 24, 2009 - 12:54 am 13. Joel:To no. 12, the Nazis fought and killed Americans (and committed atrocities against them in POW camps, etc.) as a military enemy but did not have a particular animus against them. Against Jews they had a genocidal ideology, and they sought to eradicate every Jew from the planet. To call any decent person a Nazi is abusive; to call a Jew a Nazi is something special.
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:43 am 14. Anonymous:Achmadinijad will go just like the others before him It says in the Passover Hagaddah “in every generation they rise to destroy us, and the Holy One Above saves us. He’s an ugly little man, just like Hitler was, the difference between then and now; we are much stronger militarily, i.e. the State of Israel.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:37 am 15. Hindy:Achmadinijad is an ugly little man just like Hitler was. He will end up the same way, only this time,he will not have the chance to wreak the same havoc because we are far stronger militarily,than before, i.e. The State of Israel. It says in the Passover Hagaddah: In every generation they rise to destroy us, and the Holy One will saves us from their hands. I have no doubt about it.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:41 am 16. Oscar the Grump:Jordan
I didn’t know you cared. My answer is that it wasn’t enough. We lazy and lax, we let Saddam fight a war for us.
You have the pure victim mentality. When a Moslem will behead you, you’ll be worried that his knife fits comfortably in his hand.
Apr 24, 2009 - 7:55 am 17. AlanABQ:6. Jordan:
“Lol, please… I dont think the Iranian nutcase had a clue who Wiesel even was. Way to over analyse the situation to serve your own hawkish interests.”
Yeah, you’re probably right. It was sheer coincidence that the rabid mooslim just happened to bark like a Berkely retard at some random guy who just happened to be a well-known Jewish author. What are the odds!?
Yup. Looks like you got it all figured out there, punkin.
Apr 24, 2009 - 8:44 am 18. deguello:Maybe our cretin commissar for internal security.the great intellect, Janet Napolitano,can list him as a potential domestic terrorist.
Apr 24, 2009 - 10:06 am 19. Frank:Don’t anyone mind #6 Jordan, sure his ilk may piss you off now, but remember that the cowards and traitors and appeasers are always the first to be destroyed by the evil that they help prop up.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:47 am 20. Ms. Attitude:I read the book Night over ten years ago and can still see the images clearly in my mind. Elie Wiesel is a survivor and a wonderful author.
Apr 24, 2009 - 11:57 am 21. Jordan:@AlanABQ… you sound like one of those we-never-landed-on-the-moon conspiracy fans.
Have you even considered that perhaps he reacted to all the pro-Israel supporters that were THERE and calling him and his president a racist? Has that ever crossed your mind?
@11. Dave Surls: No it was our responsibility to first, not provide them with weapons and aid and military intelligence (Saddam was our friend for god sake!!) and to go to the UN security council and condemn the act and put a stop to it, which hardly anyone did (us included).
Apr 24, 2009 - 2:31 pm 22. Dave Surls:“No it was our responsibility to first, not provide them with weapons…”
1.) We have no such responsibility, except in the case of atomic weapons. If we had decided to sell them tanks or artillery, that would have been entirely acceptable.
2.) However, we decided back in the 1960s that we would NOT provide Iraq with ANY weapons…and we never did, until after the Baathists were overthrown. Leftist propaganda notwithstanding, The United States had a total arms embargo against Iraq.
3.) The United States did condemn the use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, but we were under no obligation to go to the Security Council or “to put a stop to it”.
Apr 24, 2009 - 3:04 pm 23. AlanABQ:Jordan, you’re funny. It’s always nice to see someone postulate a theory without any means of support behind it. But OK, I’ll humor you.
How you relate anything about what I said to a conspiracy theory of any kind is somewhat telling of your reasoning skills, or lack thereof. Especially since you decided without any proof that the awful, mean ol’ Jews were calling his “leader” what he actually is and that, even if it were true about the Jews losing their cool, it totally makes it OK for him to harangue a senior citizen who went through a living nightmare! Hey, why the hell not; while he was at it, he should’ve gone for the gold & found an underage rape victim to harass for having a vagina in the first place.
Whatever. Of course you could be one of those really classy folks that deny the holocaust ever happened. Are you? I ask since you are all knotted up about people who may or may not believe certain events ever happened, such as the lunar landing, whatever the f**k that had to do with this…
But then again, who knows? Maybe all the mass graves were just poorly maintained family plots. Maybe the Nazis really, REALLY liked oversized baked goods & that explains the huge ovens. And perhaps zyklon-b was the only effective pesticide they had at the time against critters infesting their communal showering areas.
Right, punkin? I mean sure, anything’s possible. But, like your argument, is it even vaguely plausible?
Hmm…
Apr 24, 2009 - 4:56 pm 24. Morry Rotenberg:“Today, though, the haters of Israel and Jews increasingly use the word Zionist instead of Jew to imply that theirs is not the old, stigmatized anti-Semitism.”
Apr 25, 2009 - 1:03 pm 25. Jonathan Levy:I think that anti-Semitism is no longer stigmatized. Anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism. If you think that there is a real distinction then it is only a rhetorical distinction at best.
I think #6 is the strongest point in this article, and is worth re-reading:
The video … should be viewed by all those who believe Western actors should participate in events like Durban II since that “dialogue” is always worthwhile and capable of achieving something.
It reminds me of something I saw on the [Israeli] news after the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. One of the groups which had pressured the government to withdraw was an organization of 4 bereaved mothers. One of them went up to the Lebanese border and called out to strangers on the other side, saying that now we could live in peace. The gist of the reply was: “We will defeat you – we will continue all the way to Jerusalem!”
The camera caught it all.
Apr 27, 2009 - 5:50 am 26. deguello:Calling Wiesel “Zionazi”,is almost the same as Janet (THE RETARD) Napolitano classifying our veterans as Terror suspects. Maybe the bellowing Iranian is auditioning for a job at Obama’s department of homeland insecurity.
Apr 28, 2009 - 8:14 am